


Six Feet Under Screams

by EllieMurasaki



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: spn_j2_xmas, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-13
Updated: 2011-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-27 07:42:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/293333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/pseuds/EllieMurasaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jess isn't exactly with Sam of her own free will. And now she has a bigger problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Six Feet Under Screams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kiwiana](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=kiwiana).



> [Podficced](http://hobnailedboots.dreamwidth.org/6398.html) by hobnailedboots!

Two pink lines.

Well _shit_.

*  *  *

  
Jess takes a week to consider her options. Abortion comes to mind and is dismissed without prejudice; given the chance, she finds she wants this baby, though why she can't explain, and also her Catholic parents might well disown her for considering abortion a valid option, never mind if she actually goes through with it. Adoption is out for similar reasons, though the baby would probably be better off with adoptive parents. There's never any shortage of good potential parents looking for cute white newborns.

That leaves keeping the baby.

And that means circumstances have to change.

*  *  *

  
Jess has two months before she starts to show. Possibly three. Call it two. Less time volunteering for Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto. More shifts at the movie theater. Less involvement with the fall theater production. More careful acting at home. Less money spent on books. More tucked into the tampon box.

More phone calls with Mary Ann. More prayers that she's not putting Mary Ann in danger.

*  *  *

  
Sam doesn't suspect a thing. Thank God he doesn't pay attention to little things like how long it's been since her last cycle. Especially not with the Stanford Law interview looming.  


*  *  *

  
Sam's brother turns up, and Sam goes off to help fetch their dad from wherever he's hidden himself and his liquor. Sam's lying about something, but Jess doesn't care. She does a good imitation of looking like she cares, but she really could not care less.

This is her chance.

*  *  *

  
Jess knocks on Mary Ann's apartment door, go-bag slung over her shoulder.

"Pregnancy is a very dangerous time for domestic violence victims," Jess blurts out when Mary Ann appears.

Mary Ann blinks. "Hi, Jess, good to see you too."

"I'm pregnant," Jess says, and waits for Mary Ann to put the pieces together.

"Oh my god," Mary Ann says. "Oh my _god_." Mary Ann grabs Jess's hand and pulls her inside, shoos out the roommate (Jess is glad; she doesn't know the roommate at all), closes the door firmly, then rushes to the computer. Jess looks over her shoulder: Google. The National Domestic Violence Hotline. 1-800-799-SAFE.

Mary Ann is dialing when the door blows open. It's Brady.

How did he know she was running?

Of course he knew. How could she ever have imagined he wouldn't?

"Now, now, Jessie my sweet, you're not _leaving_ us, are you?" Brady asks.

"No," Jess says, with all the acting skills that high school and college drama have granted her. (That's why Brady wanted her in the first place. Hot blonde with acting skills.) "I just didn't want to be alone tonight. Sam's having a family night out, so Mary Ann's calling Stanislava so we can have a sleepover."

"Bad movies and painting nails," Mary Ann confirms. "You're welcome to stay."

Mary Ann was never an actress.

Mary Ann is slammed up against the wall. By what force, Jess doesn't know, never has figured out, though she's put thought into it several times. Telekinesis isn't _real_ outside speculative fiction, as far as her research has shown her, except that Brady obviously has it, and she's babbling to herself because she doesn't want to think about the bright red blood trickling down Mary Ann's cheek.

"Here's the deal," Brady says. "You come back to the apartment with me, and your friend doesn't die."

"And if she says no?" Mary Ann challenges. This is why Jess came to Mary Ann. Now if only Mary Ann had the sense to _stay quiet_.

Brady flicks a finger at Mary Ann, who's flung onto the ceiling. Blood drips down, too much to be from the little cut Brady gave her a minute ago. Jess doesn't look to see where it's coming from. Her own safety has to be her top priority at the moment, but how can she let Mary Ann die?

Brady's not going to let Jess walk away. That's what decides her.

"I'll go back," Jess says. She doesn't say, _and I won't run again_. "If you let Mary Ann live." She takes a step towards Brady, her skin crawling, then another, hand out to shake.

Mary Ann crashes to the floor. Jess tears herself away from Brady and checks Mary Ann: little cut on the cheek, big cut across the stomach. Jess isn't a doctor, isn't even a pre-med, but there's much too much blood for it to be a shallow cut. "I'm calling an ambulance," Jess says. "You might want to leave before you get arrested. I'll go back to the apartment once I know she's all right." She grabs the phone Mary Ann dropped and cancels out of the 180079 on the cell screen and dials 911.

*  *  *

  
Mary Ann will never have children, but she'll live.

Jess takes a taxi back to the apartment, using the cash in her go-bag because it's not like she won't have a chance to refill her stash. Brady's there waiting, all smiles for the neighbors.

*  *  *

  
Brady hangs out at the movie theater where Jess works all day Saturday and never goes to see a single movie, makes sure Jess calls to leave a supportive-girlfriend message on Sam's phone, then escorts Jess straight home after work. The same thing happens Sunday, only without the phone call.

Brady makes himself scarce at nightfall, but Jess still has the prickles across the back of her neck that make her feel she's being watched, so...cookies. Nice safe activity, cookies.

Butter and white sugar and brown sugar and vanilla extract. Mash them all together into pale brown goo. Crack, crack go the eggs; there's a metaphor there. Not the one where the white is Jesus and the shell is the Holy Spirit and the yolk is God the Father and when the teacher cracks open the egg there's two yolks, but remembering that does make Jess smile a little, a genuine smile that isn't put on for Sam's benefit. That hasn't happened in a long time.

Jess breaks the yolks with the spoon and stirs the eggs into the butter-sugar mush. Got to get all the lumps out. Got to be perfect. Perfect cookies, perfect girlfriend. Maybe the cracks in the eggshells represent the cracks in Jess's façade, because how much longer does Brady expect her to _do_ this?

Chocolate chips next, half the bag, stir them in before the flour so they're evenly distributed. Nestlé uses Côte d'Ivoire slave labor. Jess is completely out of give-a-fuck.

No nuts because Sam doesn't like them. Flour, salt, baking soda. That last makes the cookies puff up to look like proper cookies, like she's not looking like a proper girlfriend. And salt, tequila cruda, damn she wants some tequila.

One shot won't do any harm. No more than the shots at Luis's party did, anyway, but she had to have those, she didn't have a good enough reason to refuse without confessing. Jess gets out the tequila and a lime and segments the lime, pours one shot, licks her hand, puts a pinch of salt on the wet spot, licks that off, lets the tequila burn its way down her throat, bites a lime segment.

Back to the cookies. Stir in the assorted dry ingredients. Turn on the oven. Spray the cookie sheets with aerosol vegetable oil and plop dough on each sheet one spoonful at a time. She made gravestone-shaped sugar cookies the other day for Mary Ann's Halloween party, not that she went, because Luis wanted Sam to go to his party instead and Sam said he and Jess would go and it's always safer to do what Sam wants.

Jess wants to just tilt her head back and scream, but that will bring the neighbors running, and Brady's probably still around.

She slides the cookie sheets into the oven and closes the door and sets the timer. Just enough time for a hasty shower. And if the cookies burn, making cookies is soothing. Comparatively.

Jess steps out of the shower, dries off, wraps a towel around her hair, brushes her teeth and hair, and puts on a white nightgown. Sam will be back tonight, he has to be, he needs rest before his interview, and he'll probably want sex when he gets home.

The cookies are not burnt. The cookies aren't even done baking. If Jess didn't know Brady, she'd swear this oven was the spawn of Satan.

Then it's just sit back and wait.

Jess tidies up the kitchen—tequila and salt and lime stay out in case Sam wants them, the other ingredients go away; neither the sharp knives nor the cast-iron skillet come out, much as Jess wants them to.

Once the cookies are out of the oven, Brady reappears. He directs Jess to write a little love-note to leave out with the cookies, then points her to the bedroom.

Is he going to rape her? She's used to it from Sam, but with Sam, there's never malice aforethought. That's one thing that's always been crystal clear. Sam has no idea what Brady is doing, and to let him know is, when Brady finds out, instant death for Jess and her mom and dad.

Jess picks up the tequila bottle and smashes it over Brady's head. Brady just stands there and laughs. Jess follows it up by throwing the salt bowl.

Brady shouts. There's red speckles on his face where the salt hit.

Telekinesis, salt, what _is_ Brady?

That's where Brady's tolerance runs out. He throws her against a wall, then shoves her into the bedroom and tosses her up to the ceiling, all without touching her.

Breathe. In out in out in out inoutinoutinout

Brady hides in the closet, and shortly thereafter, Jess hears Sam call, "Jess? You home?"

"Salt," Jess manages, but that isn't nearly loud enough for Sam to hear. "Salt!" she screams.

Please God let that convey enough information.

Apparently it does. Sam comes in with the salt bowl. He's leaning down to the doorsill, hasn't looked up, when Jess shouts "Closet!"

Sam looks up and his eyes widen, but he listens. He throws open the closet door, and there's Brady, and he throws salt on Brady, and someone slams into the apartment and follows the noise and it's Sam's brother, and all is chaos and confusion for a few moments and _blood_ and _fire_ and _smoke_ and she falls off the ceiling with a thud on the bed and somehow she ends up on the sidewalk outside with Sam and Dean watching their home burn.

*  *  *

  
The explanation chapter takes place in Mary Ann's room at the hospital, with Stanislava there even though they've barely spoken in a year and a half, because Dean won't leave Sam, and Jess wants numbers on her side when she explains even if Mary Ann's not good for much right now.

The explanation chapter includes no mention of the word 'pregnant'.

*  *  *

  
Jess goes to her parents' funerals (ruled an accidental fire, just like the one that killed Brady) and comes back to Palo Alto to find Sam long gone.

*  *  *

  
Jess wears jeans and a T-shirt for SlutWalk. She carries a sign that says THIS IS WHAT I WAS WEARING WHEN I WAS RAPED. It's not true, strictly speaking, as all the clothes Jess was raped in burned, but Jess was raped in random pairs of jeans and random T-shirts often enough that she figures it's close enough to count. (Horseshoes and hand grenades.)

Robin's wearing a T-shirt that Jess fabric-painted the back of to say CHILD OF RAPE. Easier than trying to get a five-year-old to carry a sign for the whole march.

Mary Ann comes up to Jess later saying she swears she saw Sam. Jess shrugs it off. Jess hasn't seen Sam since months before Robin was born.

*  *  *

  
Jess sees Sam on the news, him and Dean. Crime spree. She doesn't believe it. She doesn't disbelieve it. She doesn't know what to believe.

She hasn't heard from him in years.

She never hears from him again.


End file.
